Gathering Voices: Faithful Conversations from The Thoughtful Christian

Booing the Golden Rule - Really? Booing the Golden Rule - Really?

A Gathering Voices post by Beth Pyles

        Some time ago during one of the many presidential debates, candidate Ron Paul suggested that the foreign policy of the United States would do well to follow the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  The response of a significant portion of the audience in the hall, most of them, I would hazard to guess, Christians, was to boo.
        It is shocking to hear the Golden Rule booed in any context.  
        My own belief is that the crisis of our time and place is not a lack of faith in Jesus, but rather a lack of belief that Jesus is ‘up to the job’ – I think, without meaning to, we have somehow rewritten our understanding of just who Jesus is and what Jesus does and can do.  And so we believe we have to act in the ways we do, because Jesus just isn’t up to the job.  
        An example: on the eve of the Iraq war, I coincidentally happened to attend a church meeting as a student observer.  The minister asked his Session to reflect on what Jesus would do when it came to the decision whether to go to war or not.  
        The folks had many and varied answers; they were all thinking seriously on it; they were all taking their faith and their understanding of God and God’s word into account, including one gentleman who just couldn’t contain himself; the words literally burst from him: If you’re asking me if Jesus would ride into Baghdad on top of a tank, well, of course he wouldn’t.  But Jesus would be wrong!  
        The silence that followed his outburst was, as you might imagine, stunned.  I don’t know how he and his church family dealt with that in the days, weeks, months and years after I left.  But his statement has never left me.  
        What was going on in his heart, I cannot know.  But I can tell you what I thought then and what I think now: I think the man is a genuine follower of Jesus Christ, but that somehow, over time, he has stopped believing that Jesus really is the Savior, the Messiah, the Rescuer.  Somehow, he has come to believe that Jesus just doesn’t understand what we face; that somehow, Jesus isn’t up to the job.  
        I don’t know what else to call that except a crisis of faith.  So it’s my own guess that too many in the debate hall the night Ron Paul invoked the Golden Rule may suffer the same problem: believing that Jesus is a nice enough guy, that Jesus is a good model to follow for our kids; but when it comes to the world of grown-ups, when it comes to the serious ‘business’ of the work of nations, Jesus is just too darned naive to be considered, let alone believed or followed.
        If I am right; if this is so, more’s the pity.

Manna

A Gathering Voices Post by Don McKim

 

I remember  hearing the story of the manna in the wilderness as a child in Sunday School. It was amazing: God provided what the people of Israel needed for food, each day, during their forty year sojourn in the wilderness (Exodus 16)! The manna didn’t sound too tasty—“like wafers made with honey” (v. 31).  But it sustained the people along their way (Exodus 16). This provision was so important that Moses ordered an “omer” of the manna to be put in a jar and “kept throughout your generations” in order that, as God said:  “they may see the food with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt” (v.32).

God provided for the people with manna as “bread from heaven” (Exodus 16:4; Psalm 78:24; 105:40; John 6:31), along with quails to sustain them in the midst of the dire environments of the wilderness. The wilderness was a “wretched place” which was “no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates” (Numbers 20:4,5). It was a “howling wilderness waste” (Deuteronomy 32:10). So manna meant life!

God’s “glory” (v. 7) was seen in these gracious provisions, even as the people complained they would have rather returned to the “fleshpots” of Egypt where they ate their “fill of bread” (v. 3). But now, God’s allotment was just right, for everyone. For, “those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed” (v. 18). The people were provided for so they would “know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (v. 6).

This showed God was “for” Israel, interested in preserving the people whom God had liberated. There is a “follow-through,” here. God mighty act of setting the people free was followed by God’s continuing sustenance so they could endure the zigs and zags of the long journey toward the promised land. God provided manna and quail and water (Exodus 15:27) at the point of Israel’s greatest need, when the people could not provide what they needed for themselves and were on the brink of disastrous extinction.  Day in and day out, year in and year out, in the rhythms of their lives, the people knew who was keeping and feeding them. 

The only exception was that on the sixth day, the people “gathered twice as much food” so they would have enough provisions for the Sabbath, when they were to rest and not to gather (Exodus 16:22-23). When some people became greedy and tried to gather more than the daily allotment of one omer and left it overnight, they found it “bred worms and became foul” (v. 20). The people were to trust God’s good gifts, “morning by morning” (v. 21).  As God told Moses: “At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God” (v. 12).

Even when the people complained and rebelled, God was determined to provide—to give mercy and grace. The manna was “fresh every morning,” as we might say. Whenever manna was needed, it appeared, by the work of God, every day (cf. Exodus 16:4; Joshua 5:12; Nehemiah 9:21). As the Old Testament scholar Christoph Barth put it: “The Israelites were living ‘from hand to mouth,’ from God’s hand! They could not provide for themselves. They could not even keep the manna from one day to the next. Each day they depended on God and his ongoing provision for his people.”[1]

God still provides for us, as God’s people, even though our “manna” comes in different forms. Though we may have pantries that are full and the grocery is nearby, at the bottom we know our “daily bread” comes from the hand of God. We are fed by God’s manna, everyday in what we are enabled to eat and drink, to sustain life. We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). No wonder we say a prayer of thanks at mealtime. Our eyes of faith see beyond all the cultural layers of consumerism to realize the bottom line is, truly: God provides. As John Calvin put it: we are fed by the blessing of God and “in the manna we may clearly see, as it were, in a mirror, the image of the ordinary food that we eat.”[2]

God gives us what we need, when we need it, physically and spiritually. God reminded the people of Israel, later that though manna was provided, they should understand that “one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:2). Jesus spoke this in the midst of his temptations (Matthew 4:4).  Jesus himself is “the true bread from heaven,” given to show us God’s being “for us,” in action. God gave the manna to the people so all will know that “it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.” Jesus, “the bread of heaven” now “gives life to the world” (John 16:31-34).

We do not live by “bread alone,” but God provides our bread. It is up to us to help provide “manna” for those in need throughout this world who do not have the physical bread they need for life to continue. We give to others because we have been given unto—by God.

When we do receive the manna we need—daily—we recognize, as Calvin put it, that we are “supported by God and kept safe and preserved by the secret power of His Will who has created all things.”[3]

There are “manna moments” in our lives, those times when we know in very real ways that God is directly providing for our needs, sustaining us, helping us. May we be alert to these special times, even as we thank God, everyday. May we see the glory of the Lord in all our moments so we may know that “I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 16:12).   

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[1] Christoph Barth, God with Us: A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991), 95-96.

[2] John Calvin, The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, and the Epistles to Timothy, Titus and Philemon,  Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. T.A. Smail, rpt. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979), Commentary on 2 Corinthians 8:15 (p. 114). 

[3] Calvin, Commentary on 2 Corinthians 8:15 (pgs. 113-114).

Autobasileia

A Gathering Voices Post by Don McKim

 

The liturgical year now swings into the period when we consider the early ministry of Jesus.

I was recently doing some theological reflection on Mark 1:14-15, the proclamation of Jesus and his saying: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15).

This is the starting point, the orientation for all that follows in the Gospels and indeed for the ministry of Jesus himself. As Frank Matera notes, “Everything that Jesus says or does is in some way related to the proclamation of the kingdom”[1] The kingdom of God or reign of God was Jesus’ central message. It is the most powerful image imaginable for orienting our lives as well.

Jesus’ startling proclamation is that the kingdom has “come near” or “arrived.” This signals a new reality being born, a direct change in all life, based on the life and ministry of Jesus to unfold in his Galilean ministry and beyond. There is now no escaping the reality of dealing with God’s presence, agenda, and reign. Opting out or not engaging the reign—one way or another—is not an option. As the New Testament scholar C.E.B. Cranfield put it, the kingdom of God has come close to humans “in the person of Jesus, and in his person it actually confronts them”[2]

Theologically as the Gospels unfold, we find the familiar recognition of the “already and the not yet” in regard to the kingdom. Jesus referred to the reign of God in two dimensions, the kingdom as a present and a future reality. As Vincent Taylor wrote, “Jesus spoke of the basileia [kingdom] as future (Mark 14:25; Luke 11:2 etc.), but also as present in Himself and His ministry (Luke 7:18-23; 10:23f.; 11:20, 31f.). In a true sense, therefore, he taught a ‘realized eschatology.’”[3]

We are most familiar with looking to the future kingdom. We pray it daily in the Lord’s Prayer: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done” (Matthew 6:6). We anticipate the coming kingdom and the time when: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). This is the culmination of history and the full expression of the eternal reality all history anticipates. It is the vision of God’s ultimate triumph and the establishment of “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1).

But what about the present reality of the kingdom? Taylor said that “there is clear evidence that Jesus believed the basileia to be present in Himself and His ministry.”[4] This insight led early church theologians, such as Tertullian and Origen to refer to the kingdom of God as autobasileia—a “self-kingdom”—a self-kingdom in Jesus Christ. Cranfield wrote: “In fact, we may actually go so far as to say that the kingdom of God is Jesus and that he is the kingdom.”[5] So if we want to see what the kingdom of God looks like: we look at Jesus Christ. In him, the “fullness of time” has come (Galatians 4:4; Mark 1:15) and God’s new rule is seen and begun.

We are “kingdom people,” those who seek to live in accord with God’s will and reign in the present, as we are “on our way” to the future, and the final establishment of God’s ultimate and eternal reign.

No more energizing vision can be ours than to realize we can participate in God’s kingdom in the here and now! In every event, situation, encounter and daily doing in life, we can experience the kingdom. Jesus began so many of his parables with the phrase, “the kingdom of God (of heaven) is like…” We can live in the kingdom, now! And what more exciting life can we imagine?

We look to Jesus Christ who is himself, the kingdom of God. No wonder this is “good news”!

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[1] Frank J. Matera, New Testament Theology: Exploring Diversity and Unity (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 12.

[2] C.E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel According to St. Mark (Cambridge: University Press, 1966), 68.

[3] Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark, 2^nd ed., rpt. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1969), 166.

[4] Taylor, 167.

[5] Cranfield, 66 citing Tertullian, ad Marcion 4.33 and Origen, Comment. In Matt, Tom 14.7 on Matthew 18:23.

Oscar Nominations Good News for People of Faith

 

No doubt the recent release of the Oscar nominations is creating plenty of buzz in the workplace and at church gatherings. For people of faith there is a lot to cheer about this year. Six of the films nominated for “Best Picture” are on my annual “Top Ten” of films dealing with spiritual and human relationship themes that Presbyterian News Service just sent out. And then I got to see director Stephen Daldry's wonderful Extremely Close and Incredibly Close Up, and thus had to insert this and expel one of the films from the first list. To see which one, go to www.visualparables.net . (This might not get posted until Monday, Jan. 30)

 The Artist

Rated PG-13. Ecclesiastes 9:11-12; 1 Corinthians 13:4a
This blend of A Star is Born and Singing in the Rain is a delight to see, with no dialogue until the end. Set in the late 20s when sound is being introduced to motion pictures, it is story of a falling silent film actor and the rise of the young actress whom he helped break in to the profession. Themes of love, grace and the danger of pride are well developed.

 The Descendants

Rated R. Matthew 18:2; Psalm 24:1-2.

Grace, responsibility to the land, and family reconciliation—director Alexander Payne's film, set in Hawaii has all this and more. (See an earlier blog for more.)

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Rated PG-13. Matthew 5:4; Isaiah. 66:13.

This powerful film is not about 9/11 but about its aftermath, and in particular about a boy whose father was in the tower and struggles with a mixture of grief and guilt as he searches throughout the five borroughs of New York City to discover what a key that his father left will open. What seems at first like a father son film has a couple of surprises, especially in regard to his mother.

 

The Help
Rated PG-13. Psalm 146:7b-9; Proverbs 31:8.

This civil rights era story set in Jackson Mississippi affirms the importance of sisterhood and of the support of the church for the black maids and the white writer in exposing racism in the domestic workplace.

 

Hugo
Rated PG. Psalm 82:3-4; Isaiah 11:6d

An orphaned boy secretly living above the concourse of a Parisian train station during the 1930s discovers his purpose in life—to fix a complicated automaton left by his father and a broken man.

The Tree of Life
Rated PG-13. Job 38:4-7; Matthew 5:45b

Terence Malick's film can be seen as a visual meditation on the Job passage, which we see on the screen at the beginning of the film. Departing from the usual narrative structure, the film includes scenes of a family living in Texas in the Fifties, with the themes of law and grace of great beauty. The director even inserts the creation of the universe from the Big Bang through the dinosaurs, the family, and a reunion beyond this life.

 

War Horse.

Rated PG-13. Luke 2:13-14.

Steven Spielberg is up to his usual high form in that his war film shows the humanity of both the British and the German soldiers, drawn together at the climax by their love of the horse trapped and in pain between their lines.

 

All of the above will make for good viewing and discussion for church film groups, as well as provide some preaching material for pastors seeking to relate their sermons to the culture. And besides the seven briefly discussed above, other worthy nominees include My Week With Marilyn; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Iron Lady, and one which I wish could have been given more recognition, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2. I'm really looking forward to the Oscar Awards this year—and am somewhat glad that I don't have to pick “Best Picture,” torn as I am between so many good choices. What ones are you hoping to see honored on February 26?

 

Reviews of the above films are up, or in several cases, soon will be posted at visualparables.net.

The Gifts We Need

A Gathering Voice Post by Don McKim

 

Christmas has come and gone with gifts given and received. Gifts bring us joy and delight—both in their receiving and their giving. Sometimes we receive what we expect. Other times, the gifts are totally unexpected. Even if what we receive is not exactly what we wanted or hoped for, when gifts come from loved ones, we receive them joyfully.

For some, gift-giving at Christmas is almost superfluous. We have so much; and can’t think of anything to request that we “need.” So all we receive goes beyond our basic level of “need” and are gracious gifts to be enjoyed.

But there are several gifts in life which we do, “need.” We may not fully realize them. It’s easy to “live on the surface” and think primarily about how to make it from year to year, day to day. But there are gifts we need for the long haul; and gifts which go beneath the level of the next new dress or shirt or technological gadget.

The Gift of Life. This is most basic, isn’t it? Right from the start: God formed humans from the “dust of the ground” and breathed into them “the breath of life” so humans became “living beings” (Gen. 2:7). However you interpret the Genesis narratives, it is clear as a Christian conviction that God creates humans. We owe our existence and our “breath of life” to our good Creator (Job 33:4). On the other hand, the gift of life is gone when God’s Spirit is withdrawn (Ps. 104:29; Eccl. 12:7; Job 34:14f.). In God’s hand is “the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being” (Job 12:10).  As Wolfhart Pannenberg put it: “The breath of Yahweh is a creative life force” (Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991-1993), 1:373).

Life is good and precious because it comes from God. We live our days to the fullest because they are given to us by our creator, to be used according to God’s will and purposes for us. Our attempts to prolong our days—our natural urge—should be seen as seeking more time to love and serve God. I heard of a man who said, “I never cared about living to be ninety, until I became eight-nine!”  We seek the fullness of our days to live out the gift of life.

The Gift of Faith.  God the creator is also God the redeemer. Our sad story of sin, in not living the gift of life as God desires, is met by God’s goodness of giving us the gift of faith in Jesus Christ, as the means of salvation. This is the church’s story, the message of Scripture, and way to eternal life (John 3:16; Rom. 6:23).

The sixteenth century Protestant Reformers stressed salvation by grace—God’s gift, freely given in Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:8-9). The means salvation is faith, which is also God’s gift of grace (Rom. 1:17). In faith we come “empty to God,” said Calvin, so we may be “filled with the blessings of Christ.” We claim nothing for ourselves but “acknowledge God alone as the Author” of our salvation (Calvin, Comm. Ephesians 2:8).

Surely the gift of faith in Jesus Christ is the one gift we need, beyond all else. If we are given the gift of life and are interested in knowing how God wants us to live, we come to the point of faith. The message of the Christian Gospel provides us with the hope of “eternal life”—which means not just the “life everlasting,” but the kind of life in the here and now which lasts eternally and is the life God created us to live.  Jesus Christ is the “bread of life” (John 6:35, 48) who has come that we “may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). The gift of faith unites us to Christ who is our “spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

The Gift of the Spirit. The gifts of life and faith are supported and lived out by the gift of God’s Spirit. God’s Spirit creates and sustains us, in our “natural” life and in our lives of faith. In describing God’s presence in the Spirit among the people of God, Jürgen Moltmann notes that “the gift of the Spirit comes from the countenance of God when it is turned towards human beings and shines on them. It is a gift that brings inward assurance in living, and new vital energies” (Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 45).

In the church, in light of the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2) in fulfillment of Jesus’ promise of the Spirit (John 15:26), the gift of the Spirit is given to all who believe in Jesus Christ. There is now “one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13) in the “one body” with “many members” (Rom. 12:4, 1 Cor. 12:12, 20). The “gifts of the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:14; 12:4-11) are given to all in the church to be used “for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7). As Moltmann put it: “There is one Spirit and many gifts. Everyone concerned, whether man or woman, is endowed and committed through his or her calling, wherever he or she is, and whatever he or she is” (The Spirit of Life, 240).

The gift of the Spirit releases us in the world to serve Jesus Christ and seek God’s will in any and all places. The Spirit is the “Spirit of life” (Rom. 8:2) and where we experience life, we can by the gift of faith, experience the Spirit. This why all life is “alive,” with the impulses of the Spirit and the possibilities of sharing the life-giving Spirit of Jesus Christ with others. Moltmann said, “We experience God with our whole life, and can use all the ways of expressing life to express the experience of God” (The Spirit of Life, 267).

These are the basic gifts we need, in the deepest ways: The gift of life, the gift of faith, the gift of the Spirit. These gifts, God has given us. Thanks be to God!

 

Providential Trust

A Gathering Voices Post by Don McKim

 

The end of an old year and the beginning of a new year leads us to reflection. We reflect on the world, the church, and ourselves. And we reflect on God. Where is God in it all? What is God doing in these places? What is God doing and calling us toward in the days that lie ahead?    Reformed Christians consider this as reflection on God’s providence. This is our trust that God leads us and guides us through life, as God sustains, works with, and governs the world. The Reformed have had a comprehensive view of providence, seeing God at work in all things. This is captured in question 28 of the Heidelberg Catechism which asks: “What advantage comes from acknowledging God’s creation and providence?” Answer: “We learn that we are to be patient in adversity, grateful in the midst of blessing, and to trust our faithful God and Father for the future, assured that no creature shall separate us from his love, since all creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will they cannot even move” (Book of Confessions 4.028).

Theological controversies have raged over the nature and extent of God’s providence. But the main emphasis for us as believers is that we can trust God’s providence in and through all life, being “patient,” “grateful,” and “assured” of God’s loving guidance and help. This is an attitude for the new year; and beyond…

Psalm 31 is a psalm of thanksgiving and trust. The Psalmist seeks refuge in God and prays in the words echoed by Jesus on the cross: “Into your hand I commit my spirit” (Psalm 31:6). But another verse also stands out here as an expression of providential trust—the trust that God’s providence surrounds us and guides us. The psalmist says: “My times are in your hand” (Psalm 31:15).

On December 31, 1960, prisoners in the city jail in Basel, Switzerland were given the opportunity to attend worship. The preacher was the famous theologian who lived in Basel, Karl Barth (1886-1968). Barth did not do a lot of preaching but confined most of his engagements to preaching to the prisoners in the local jail. On the last day of 1960, Barth preached on this text with the sermon being eventually titled:  “My Time is Secure in Your Hands” [Karl Barth, Call for God: New Sermons from Basel Prison, trans. A.T. Mackay (London: SCM Press, 1967), 39-47].

While Barth said that “my time” means the span of our lives, he said it also means, “my destiny.” “My time,” he said is “my whole life story, with all that I have endured or accomplished and perhaps shall still endure or accomplish—my life story with each and everything that I was and am and shall be. This life story of mine, this is secure in your hands!” (42).

Our times/life is secure in God’s hands. “Not in the hands of a dark, unfeeling fate, at which one could not help shuddering and feeling afraid,” said Barth (43). And our lives are not secure in our own hands. “It is good,” he said, “that I am not my own master” (44). But our times and lives are secure in God’s hands; and that makes all the difference.

God’s “hands,” said Barth, are God’s deeds, God’s works, God’s words, which “whether we know it and want it or not, surround and embrace, bear and sustain us all on all sides” (44). But even more, said Karl Barth, “‘Your hands’—these are the hands of our Saviour Jesus Christ. They are the hands which he held outstretched when he called: ‘Come unto me, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ They are the hands with which he blessed the children. They are the hands with which he touched the sick and healed them. They are the hands with which he broke the bread and shared it out to the five thousand in the desert place and then again to his disciples before his death. Finally and above all, they are his hands nailed to the cross, so that we might be reconciled to God” (44). “In these divine hands of yours,” said Barth, “I am kept, I am preserved, I am saved” (45).

"Providential trust,” trust in God’s providence, is the way to view our yesterdays, our todays, and our tomorrows. We are not exempt from the sufferings and difficulties of life. But as we face them, we do so secure in the “hands” which hold us, the hands of the God who loves us and guides us in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

 

 

When I Was Hungry

A Gathering Voices post by Beth Pyles

On Christmas Eve, 2005, in Amman, Jordan, I went to midnight mass with a group of folks, including a Muslim friend. During the Mass, Jameel, my Muslim friend, asked why we didn't all go up as the others were doing and as I was trying to explain, it got less and less sensible to me. 

As we sat, sidelined spectators, Jameel said, “I like this - it is very nice - it reminds me of Jesus loving and feeding the poor.” I turned to see the people (many of whom were Filipino domestic workers) walking forward to receive the host from the priest.  

Through Jameel's eyes, I saw communion in a new light:  Jesus came to feed the hungry, physically as well as spiritually (is there a word to refer to the unity of the two?  I wish I knew it.)  

Is communion an enactment of that reality as well as the reality of atoning sacrifice for salvation?  I want to think so.  The question occurs to me:  who, starving to death, would I not feed?  It is the question I am left with as I marvel that my Muslim friend  wanted to participate and saw no reason why he should not.  

Feeding those who lack:  it really is pretty simple, isn't it? 

This is what I wrote on that December evening in 2005.  During that same time, I was reflecting on the collective fate of four Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) colleagues: Tom Fox, Jim Loney, Harmeet Sooden and Norman Kember, who were then being held captive by kidnapers who had seized them in November of that same year at gunpoint in Baghdad.  Tom Fox would be murdered in March of 2006.  But that is a history that had not yet happened during Midnight Mass in Amman.  

The juxtaposition is almost cruelly ironic: our friends Tom, Jim, Harmeet and Norman were being held against their will while it was only my own bow to social, cultural and religious conventions not my own that kept me nailed to the pew instead of going forward and taking my friend with me to receive communion.

I was thinking on what my friends were eating or not eating while I complained about my boredom with rice.  Knowing that you have friends who might literally be starving to death makes you look at meals, all meals, including the banquet feast of the Lord, in a very different light.

But even that wasn’t enough to open the doors of my own mind in that time and space.  It was only later, much later, looking back on it all, that I began to feel shame . . . shame at having remained seated . . . shame at participating, even passively, in denying my friend, yes, my Muslim friend, access to The Table . . . 

When I was hungry, you fed me, said Jesus.

The only qualification Jesus ever mentions for being fed is being hungry.

My friend Jameel was hungry that night in Amman.  And I told him he couldn’t eat.

Oh, Jameel’s birthday?  December 25.  

Light and Darkness at Christmas

A Gathering Voices post by Lynne M. Baab

This year I’m experiencing Advent and Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere for the first time in five years. For the past four Christmases, I’ve been in New Zealand, where Christmas comes four days after the SUMMER solstice. In New Zealand, Christmas advertisements often feature picnic items and summer clothes. Typical Christmas foods include strawberries and cream. I’d never thought about how many summer foods are green and red, and therefore appropriate for Christmas: strawberries, watermelon, lettuce salads with tomatoes. 

Our first Christmas in New Zealand was totally disorienting. The summer weather felt downright weird at Christmas time. The fact that everyone takes a big vacation at Christmas left our small city virtually deserted for several weeks. The calm and quiet between Christmas and New Years felt spooky. 

The second year we knew a bit more of what to expect, and I found myself appreciating the quiet days around the holidays. By the fourth year, I was enjoying the warm summer weather at Christmas time and reveling in the long days, slower pace and Christmas warmth. I began to relish the Southern Hemisphere Christmas, a joyous season of sunshine, beaches, hiking, biking, picnics, and relaxed time with friends outdoors. 

Now here we are in cold weather with night falling in late afternoon. The Christmas lights are so cheerful and pretty, shining in the dark evenings. Jesus as the Light of the dark world seems more real in the Northern Hemisphere. There’s something appropriate about remembering, when days are so short, that the Light has come into the world. 

But  Southern Hemisphere Christmases offer a different perspective, and I have to confess I’m missing the Christmas warmth and sunshine. Perhaps I can describe it best by reflecting on the study of Ecclesiastes that my husband and I have been doing for the past few months. 

The vivid words of Ecclesiastes have been reminding us of the brevity of life, and how important it is to notice God’s grace moment by moment and to enjoy each day as a gift – a sort of carpe diem in Christ. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10), and remember God – in fact, stand in awe – in the midst of all of it.  Ecclesiastes has impressed on our hearts that we are not in control, but we have a loving Creator God who we can trust and who gives us good gifts to relish and enjoy.

That message fits with a Southern Hemisphere Christmas, where the Holy Season is linked with sunshine, picnics, and vacations that are both energetic and relaxing. Enjoy each day as a gift. Notice God’s grace moment by moment, and stand in awe of God’s goodness. Revel in the warmth, light, relaxation and abundance.

I’m soaking up every moment of this Northern Hemisphere Christmas, where I get to be with family and enjoy candles and bright lights in dark evenings. But I’m grateful I get to return to New Zealand after Christmas and enjoy some summer weather. And I’m grateful that many of my Christmases to come will probably be spent in New Zealand, where I can stretch my understanding of what Christmas means to include two sets of metaphors: light shining in the darkness and warmth and abundance as a sign of God’s goodness in Christ.

With the Shepherds

With the Shepherds

A Gathering Voices Post by Don McKim

Each year we are struck by all the “cultural apparatus” which becomes “Christmas” for so many in our society. We know the components: shopping, parties, decorating…more shopping….These are rituals for us this time of year, familiar dimensions of our Christmas experience, woven together into a tapestry that sustains us with happy memories for the next twelve months.

As we reflect theologically on Christmas, the images are many, a number of which collide with our contemporary cultural practices. Think of the gift of Christ given to a poor couple—Joseph and Mary—when we are people who have so much. There is the stark simplicity of birth of Jesus in contrast to the elaborateness of how we celebrate today. There is the message of the angels who said the Savior, Messiah will bring “peace,” when ours continues to be a world at war on the global, national, and personal scenes. So we live with these dialectics, the tensions between the “first Christmas” and “our Christmas,” between the gospel stories and our own stories—as people, all created by God.

To look at the birth of Jesus through our own cultural lenses, we would hardly expect—make that “never expect,” the savior of the world to enter the world and make his way through it, the way Jesus born in Bethlehem’s “manger,” (Luke 2:12) did. It has always been the case that the ways of God do not match the expectations of the “reasonable,” “wise,” or most “sophisticated” among us. This is what Paul pointed toward when he spoke of the “foolishness” of the cross and the “wisdom of God” found in Christ, in contrast to the “wisdom of the world” (see 1 Corinthians 1:18-31). God constantly confounds human expectations, and certainly so in the event of the coming of God’s Son into the world.

John Calvin notes this in his commentary on Luke 2:8: “In that region there were shepherds living in the fields.” Calvin wrote: “While God had at hand many of rank and high ability as witnesses, He puts them aside and simply chooses shepherds, of little account with men, of no reckoning. Here the reasonableness and thoughtfulness of the flesh must look foolish, and we must allow that what is foolishness from God, is higher than what is, or seems to be, wisdom of the world (1 Cor. 1:25)” (Commentary on Luke 2:8; Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries [CNTC] 1:73-74).

The shepherds in the Christmas story show God’s ways of working, which are ways that surprise and run counter to our “human wisdom” or the expectations of “reasonable” people. The shepherds, as the first witnesses to the new-born savior, show us that God is full of surprises; and that what we in today’s cultures  may value most: status, wealth, privilege—are not the primary things on God’s agenda—especially when it comes to witnessing to history’s astounding event: God becoming a human being!

As Calvin continued: “From the beginning God laid up this incomparable wealth in earthen vessels, the better to test the obedience of our faith. If we desire to come to Christ, we must not be ashamed to follow those whom God chose, from the sheep dung, to bring down the pride of the world” (CNTC 1:74).

God uses “earthen vessels”: poor people, a manger, shepherds “from the sheep dung,” to initiate the salvation of the world. This is “counter-cultural,” this is “counter-wisdom.” Yet this is God’s way to work in the world.

Beneath and behind all our frantic busyness and our cultural enactments, stand the way and work of God, in sending the savior of the world, to bring peace, and eternal life (John 3:16). God used the shepherds “from the sheep dung”—to counter the “pride of the world;” and to provide for us what we could never provide for ourselves.

In the familiar biblical narratives, the church nativity plays, the Christmas carols, and the gratitude to God for blessings of family and all else, let’s stand with the shepherds in worship and praise. And let’s see in the shepherds, God’s incomparable way of working—focused even more clearly in the baby the shepherds came to worship: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

 

 

 

Grace and Gratitude

A Gathering Voices Post by Don McKim

 

The end of November each year brings three events. One is Thanksgiving Day in the United States; the other two are the end and the beginning of the church year.

Thanksgiving Day is a well-established American institution, complete with all the trappings of “grandmother’s house,” the festive meal of turkey and trimmings, along with all other family “traditions.” For some, it is the favorite holiday of the year—no gifts to give—just enjoy!

Thanksgiving is a day whose name means “gratitude,” with roots reaching back in the North American continent to communal celebrations for God’s blessings, given, and the response of those heeded the hymn’s invitation: “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” (The Presbyterian Hymnal, #551).

The conclusion of the church year is designated “Christ the King/Reign of Christ” Sunday, in which we mark the end of the liturgical year with the ringing affirmation that “Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:11) and that the end of history will be marked by proclamation of the seventh angel in the book of Revelation:  “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:15)! This is an ultimate affirmation of Christian hope, pulling us ahead into God’s future and giving us the comfort and assurance of God’s power and presence with us, eternally.

Our human response to the coming reign of Christ is thankfulness and gratitude. How could it be otherwise? Deep within us is God’s promise that the life of the world and our own lives—with all their “zigs and zags” are given meaning by our participation in Christ’s reign. Christ is reigning now; and definitively in the future, even as we pray, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

The first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the new liturgical year. Advent is the time of expectancy and hope as we anticipate the coming of God’s Messiah in the baby born in Bethlehem, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. The church waits on “tiptoe” for the coming of the Christ child in whom salvation and eternal life is found. Christ’s coming is the sheer gift of God’s grace, given to sinful people; and to the world which needs a savior from all sin. Advent is grace as we await the sure-coming of God’s “indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

These three days in the civic and church calendar point us to the great rhythm of the Christian life: Grace and Gratitude. These are the movements which define who we are as Christians: those who receive God’s gifts; and who respond in gratitude.

Those in the Reformed theological tradition know this rhythm within our bones. Noted Reformation scholar, Brian Gerrish shows in Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin (rpt. Wipf & Stock, 2002) how Calvin’s theology of the Lord’s Supper embraces these movements. Grace and gratitude bring Calvin’s “teaching on the Lord’s Supper into harmony with other parts of the whole. In itself, the meal is a gift of God, but—like every girt—it is also an invitation to give thanks.” Gerrish quotes Calvin’s earliest edition of the Institutes (1536), where he wrote: “In this sacrament…the Lord recalls the great bounty of his goodness to our memory and stirs us up to acknowledge it; and at the same time he admonishes us not to be ungrateful for such lavish liberality, but rather to proclaim it with fitting praises and to celebrate it by giving thanks” (Gerrish, 19). God feeds us in the Supper, the “spiritual banquet,” and we respond in deepest gratitude, thanks, and praise!

Gerrish goes on to note that the “answering gratitude” of God’s children to God’s liberality is “not only the theme of the Lord’s Supper but a fundamental theme, perhaps the most fundamental theme, of an entire system of theology.” For, “it conveys, as nothing else can, the heart of Calvin’s perception of God, humanity, and the harmony between them that was lost by Adam and restored by Christ. The cardinal role of grace and gratitude is not surprising, since piety or godliness, as Calvin understands it, is grateful acknowledgement of the father’s gifts….The holy banquet is simply the liturgical enactment of the theme of grace and gratitude that lies at the heart of Calvin’s entire theology, whether one chooses to call it a system or not. It is, in short, a ‘eucharistic’ theology” (Gerrish, 20).

When I talk about the Christian life with church folks and discuss this theme, I ask them to experience it this way. Though I am not “big” on physical “expressions,” it is helpful if they envision the Christian life by closing their eyes and “breath in” while thinking: “Grace;” and “breathe out” while thinking “Gratitude.” This is the heartbeat of the Christian faith, expressed in our very act of breathing itself—the life-giving activity!

Grace and gratitude constitutes who we are as children of God!